Embodiments described herein relate generally to methods and apparatus for configuring devices within a control plane of a switch fabric. Some embodiments relate more specifically to dynamic automated configuration of network devices within a control plane of a switch fabric.
Switch fabrics can be used, for example, to route data between multiple network devices and/or storage devices. Each network device and/or storage device can be operatively coupled to the switch fabric and can control data input to and output from the switch fabric. In this manner, each network device and/or storage device can send data to the switch fabric and receive data from the switch fabric.
Control processors can be used to monitor and/or control the operation of the switch fabric. For example, a control processor can be used to maintain and/or distribute a routing table to modules within the various stages of the switch fabric and/or the network devices and/or storage devices configured to interface with the switch fabric. Such a routing table can contain information indicating where modules within the switch fabric, the network devices and/or the storage devices should forward the data such that the data reaches its destination. For example, the routing table can indicate to which module within a second stage of a switch fabric a module within a first stage of the switch fabric should send a particular data packet.
The control processor can be electrically and physically coupled to modules within the switch fabric and/or access switches by multiple cables. If the switch fabric contains a large number of modules and/or if a large number of network devices and/or storage devices are configured to send data to the switch fabric, a large number of cables are typically used. Thus, the number of cables used in the system can be relatively large and potentially unmanageable. Additionally, provisioning the modules, network devices, and storage devices can be a complex and time-intensive task. For example, an administrator typically spends a significant amount to time configuring device identifiers and routing tables to correspond with the physical topology of the network.
Thus, a need exists for a switch fabric system having a relatively few number of physical connections between a control processor and the modules within the switch fabric and/or the access switches. Additionally, a switch fabric system in which modules, network devices, and storage devices can be simply configured would be advantageous.